HEADMASTER Kevin Harrison sounds like my kind of no-nonsense bloke.

As the new head of Macclesfield High, he’s reinstated the rule that pupils get to their feet when he enters the classroom.

Most of us over 40 will nod in agreement. That’s what we had to do and nobody ever questioned this traditional mark of respect.

Tim Walton’s son Daniel refused to stand and was subsequently suspended.

Dad Tim, bless his idiotic little socks, is backing his lad on the grounds that the head hadn’t been there long enough to earn his respect.

Kevin Harrison is clearly a man with immense patience, because I’d have grabbed the feckless oik up by his ears.

The two were barred from the school and I’m sure they are dreadfully missed.

The dictionary on my desk tells me that the definition of respect is “an attitude of deference, admiration or esteem”.

Many parents of teenagers applying that definition to relationships with their own offspring may require medical treatment for the several ribs which have been dislodged during a prolonged bout of hysterical laughter.

But where did it all go wrong?

Where did people like Tim Walton stop guiding and advising their children away from this kind of contempt?

More importantly, at what point did children stop worrying what their parents might think or do and the parents start worrying what their children might think and do?

Because that is the point where lack of parental control and discipline – the essence of respect within the family unit – broke down.

And I’m not talking about physical discipline here.

I’m talking about the point where the word “No” spoken to a child of any age provokes a reaction so negative or so aggressive that many parents are put under pressure to justify that decision.

It was not that long ago that I was a youngster and like many of my peers, I wanted to have or do things that my parents felt I should not have or do at that particular time.

Why argue, I thought, because I knew it was futile and while you only truly gain respect for your parents when you leave their home, something in me informed that decision not to push it.

Yet today’s spoiled sons and daughters – with their own bedrooms (no three in a room for this lot), their PSPs, PS2s, MP3s, DVDs and TVs – gladly launch into a row that might end in a letter to the European Court of Human Rights or a call to Childline.

Our children may be the future leaders of this country, but isn’t it about time parents started to realise that devolving that power too early can lead to real problems?